The Indian Army faces resource crunch with over 49,000 vacant posts

• The Indian army is facing a shortage of 45,634 posts, out of which 7,399 posts are for the commissioned ranks
  
• The data on vacancies stands as on 1 January, 2019.
  
• The Army has conducted over 200 recruitment camps across the country, in the last three years. In 2019, 13 recruitment camps have been set up as of date and 80 are in the pipeline.

Looks like, the Indian Army is facing resource crunch even in a country where unemployment is high.

Over 45,000 posts are lying vacant in the Army, the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh informed the Parliament on June 24. Of this, as many as 7,399 posts are for the commissioned ranks, as per data from January 2019, according to PIB press release.

“Various reasons including accretions of posts from time to time, tough selection procedures, difficult service conditions coupled with perceived high risk involved in the services career and limitation in number that can be trained are responsible for the situation,” the minister said responding to a question by Shri Rakesh Sinhain of the Upper House, Rajya Sabha.

The Army has conducted over 200 recruitment camps across the country, in the last three years. In 2019, 13 recruitment camps have been set up as of date and 80 are in the pipeline.

“Recruitment in the army is a continuous process and vacancies are filled without compromising the quality of training,” Rajnath Singh said.

To fill these posts and attract the right kind of candidates, the Defence ministry has also been spending on publicity to inspire youth to join the forces.

In 2016-17, the ministry spent ₹37.887 million for publicity, whereas in 2017-18 is dipped down to ₹19.947 million. The publicity expenditure for 2018-19 was ₹21.619 million.